R&F.ca Weekly Update
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Striking York food service workers win $15 and fairness | An interview with Basia Sokal, the new Winnipeg Labour Council President | The rise of precarity | Nationalism does not equal workers power
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On Monday striking York food service workers, represented by Unite Here Local 75, voted to accept their new contract. The workers went on strike for and won a $15/hour starting wage and fair working conditions. Their victory paves the way for workers right across the province to achieve $15 and fairness.

The workers won major improvements to their contract in the nearly three week strike. They will see an immediate bump in their starting wage from $12.21 per hour to $13.21, which will apply retroactively back to last September. There will be a further wage increase this coming September and by the end of the first year of the contract the starting wage for all workers will be $15. Read more!

The WLC has a storied history of radical union activism, including playing a key role in the legendary Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. But in recent years the WLC settled for a corridor politics approach, opting to hang around City Hall, getting out the vote for WLC-endorsed candidates and working closely with the United Way. Read more!

I got an email from a former student last week. She was excited to tell me about finally landing a permanent job. After four years of university and three years of contracts, finally, a permanent job. I heartily congratulated her but I still felt uneasy, knowing that so many others I’d taught were still caught in the trap of permanent temporariness. Because the other email I got last week was from a student still looking for work that will make full use of their knowledge and skills, and will give them the kind of financial security and stability that they can build a life on. Read more!

With Donald Trump as President of the United States and nationalist and racist movements around the world gaining greater strength, now is not the time for the Canadian labour movement to fall back on nationalism.

The crisis in ATU Local 113 demonstrates some disturbing trends. Rhetoric from Bob Kinnear and Unifor President Jerry Dias has used nationalism to make the case why Local 113 should leave the ATU. Read more!